Page 213 of House of Cards

“I wanted to take my time with you.” He shoves a hand in his pocket, brings out a string of pearls.

Audrey’s pearls.

Mypearls.

“Remember these?”

I reach for them with my free hand like a child clawing for candy.

“Nuh-uh. These aremine.Trofeos.?3 Mementos.” He smiles. Disgustingly. “I still have her panties.”

I blink at him, the white noise in my ears swelling.

“I keep them in a special drawer, with the others.” He dangles the pearls, grin widening. “That’s where I was keeping this. I’m gonna take out her panties later. Wrap them around my dick as I?—“

I don’t hear the rest.

Too much blood rushing through my ears. Heart pounding too hard. Thoughts flickering by too fast, blurring.

Everything’s blurring.

Audrey. That was her name. Audrey Dennen, because she didn’t take Franco’s last name, because we meant nothing to that selfish?—

Elonzo grunts, pain and confusion flickering over his face.

Something warm coats my fingers.

I swear I hear a sound through the white noise. A muffledthud.Then a wetsquelch.

Thud.

Squelch.

Elonzo yells, “Fuck!” and staggers back, dropping the lighter to the carpet. It carries on burning, a tiny flame in a sea of beige.

I stay where I am, wondering what the hell he’s doing. He stumbles, one hand clapped to his stomach. I expect him to laugh, to say something vile and utterly bonkers.

But he just tugs out his gun and lifts it on a wobbly arm, gritted teeth stained red, and shoots.

Something nips at my ear, a cool trickle racing down my throat.

Now I really can’t hear anything.

His arm bobs, eyes widening until he’s staring at me like he sees the Devil instead of the daughter of the woman he brutally assaulted outside her diner. At his feet, the single flame has spread to a small, spitting patch of charred carpet fibers.

“¡Hijueputa?4!”

A flash erupts from the gun’s muzzle.

Something punches me in the arm, and the knife I forgot I was holding drops to the ground. I’m there a second later, on my ass, half leaning to one side with my legs stacked and stretched out, like how they always show mermaids when they’re on land.

Smoke is churning up from the carpet now. Elonzo ignores it, so maybe I’m hallucinating that too.

Someone’s laughing.

I think it’s me.

Elonzo points the gun down, and he’s grinning too, like he’s telling me a hilarious joke, and we’re both already laughing because we’ve figured out the punch line, but he hasn’t told it yet, and so we’re just laughing for nothing and we can’t stop.

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